The Truth about Immigration
A big misconception about undocumented immigrants is that they are dangerous, illegal, and steal our jobs, bringing violence and crime to America. From my experience volunteering at Canal Alliance, I can pretty strongly say that these misconceptions are not true, and I have experienced a few counter-stories myself. One is from an ESL class a few weeks ago during the beginning of class. The teacher always asks the students how their day was, and that day she asked them how work was. The students gave a few groans, but in general, just nodded and shrugged from the long hard work day. The teacher then asked if they had made a lot of money today, which was a little bit of a joke, but pretty much everyone in the room immediately said no. It was resounding and resolute. It was very clear to me then, these people have traveled an incredibly difficult journey to America just to make barely any money from working all day. A statistic that has stuck in my mind since the Canal ESL orientation is that these people only make about 400$ a month. There is no way that these undocumented immigrants are stealing all of “our” good jobs. In fact, I am honestly not sure how they would be able to. They don’t have documentation, and I assume that “good jobs” would require such, so it seems impossible to me that these people could even apply for these jobs.
Another misconception is that they are dangerous or illegal. While I only know a small handful of immigrants, I can definitively say with my whole chest that these people are incredibly kind, respectful, and some of the most hard working people I know. Despite a long day of work, they still come everyday to learn English and their work in class is very good and strong. I have never once felt like I was in danger while at Canal Alliance or even walking around the Canal. Whenever I leave, a group of the men in the class I aide stand outside and every week they will say, “Goodbye Maya! See you next week!” and it always makes me happy. To be completely honest, I am more afraid of old white men than these kind immigrants.
I think that a lot of the issues Yunuen brings up are similar issues that the people of Canal go through/have gone through. The only difference is that Yunuen is from Mexico and everyone in the class that I aide is from Guatemala. However, I know that their experiences are probably very similar. For this reflection I will focus on the aspect of hardships and suffering that these immigrants experience when escaping poverty to come to the U.S. to start a new life. I’ve chosen this one because I can see it a little bit in the people at Canal. These people have gotten out of their home countries, already knowing two languages: their indigenous and Spanish, and have gone through an incredibly taxing and difficult journey just to travel past the border. I have never once heard of an easy journey through the border to America, so I can’t imagine that any of the people at Canal are the exception to this experience and journey. The struggle does not stop here however. Once they get to America, they have to find a job but they also have to learn to speak English as it is the dominant language. Also, quite often, these immigrants are gentrified into communities where the main language is Spanish, and if they don’t have the opportunity to learn English, then they will be stuck in those communities. Immigrants in general do not have the odds in their favor. This is what Canal tries to help with, especially when it comes to learning English. The work never seems to end for undocumented immigrants who are just trying to make a living for themselves and their families. They had nothing in their homeland, so they came to America for just a little bit more and are constantly facing difficulties. Now they have to learn English as well, which can be incredibly difficult when one already knows two languages.
For my research topic I want to study the phenomenon about immigrants and employment. There is such a big stigma that undocumented immigrants come to America and steal our good jobs. I know that this is not the case, however I want to do more research on the subject matter to find actual evidence breaking down these claims. I also want to delve further into the actual jobs that immigrants are doing. So many Americans do not realize the truth about undocumented immigrants and what they do for a living, which often includes being paid barely enough to survive, not to mention that these jobs are incredibly hard and taxing. One of my sources is listed below, as well as what I learned from this article.
D’Costa, Krystal. “What Are the Jobs That Immigrants Do?” Scientific American Blog Network, 9 Aug. 2018, blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/what-are-the-jobs-that-immigrants-do/.
Krystal D’Costa, an anthropologist from New York, asks an important in her article: what are the jobs that native-born Americans will not do? She acknowledges the stereotype around undocumented and documented immigrants: that they steal good jobs from native-born Americans, and she acknowledges that this isn’t true. D’Costa then moves to focus on the fact that since Trump’s elections and policies about immigrants have taken place, that seasonal companies are finding it incredibly difficult to hire people. She has found from data that even with incredibly attractive benefits and salary raises, that not even native-born Americans want to work these jobs. The biggest reason that D’Costa found for why native-born American don’t want to work these jobs is because they are hard physically and require more work than native-born Americans are used to. In D’Costa’s words, native-born Americans find these jobs “undesirable”. Before the strong immigrantion laws and policies took place, all immigrants alike would work these incredibly hard and grueling jobs just to make sometimes only eight dollars an hour. I think that it is telling of the work ethic that immigrants have and that it is very clear that immigrants do not take our good jobs, but they do the work that no native-born American would really want to do. We do not see how much we are without until they are gone.
